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"MOSR has been talking with sources at several of the industry's biggest players in that market and the year ahead is going to be a time of renewal and big changes.....many of them very, very good for the Mac power user.

For over a decade now, there has been a substantial (if hotly competitive) market for third-party aftermarket PowerPC processor upgrades that can be installed in a broad range of Macs. Not every PPC Mac can be upgraded, but many can and companies like Newer Technology, Powerlogix/OWC, Sonnet Tech, and Daystar have been cranking out upgrades that bring many older machines to near-modern CPU performance at a very reasonable price.

The big news from our sources in the upgrade marketplace is twofold. First, the era of PowerPC upgrades is far from over....in fact, Freescale, IBM and at least two other up and coming PPC chip makers have all been approaching Mac upgrade makers with proposals to use PowerPC chips that might have powered next-generation Apple computers in an alternate universe.....in upgrades that will keep many recent PPC Macs surprisingly competitive with today's Core Duo and tomorrow's Core 2-based computers.

Secondly, nearly all of the upgrade makers are looking into becoming major resellers of Intel processors bundled as kits to upgrade today's socketed Core Duo Macs (the Mini and iMac, with the Mac Pro and Xserve soon to follow) at or below the cost of hand-upgrading with a chip bought from a random online retailer. Also, many upgrade makers are exploring the possibility of upgrading the soldered-in Core chips in MacBooks and MacBook Pros, using a similar process employed for upgrading soldered-in PowerPC Macs: the customer ships the MacBook to the upgrade maker, and the upgraded laptop is shipped back to the consumer a few days later with a new Core 2 chip soldered in by a professional.

The first wave of these new-generation upgrades will be faster, enhanced G4/G5-class processors from Freescale at the heart of new daughtercard upgrades for many G3/G4-class Macs. Although the new Freescale chips will employ numerous new technologies that aren't directly supported by the older Macs such as RapidIO busses, the daughtercard adapters will shoe-horn the technology to allow the faster, multicore PowerPC chips to greatly improve the performance of those Macs.

This first wave of Freescale-based upgrades may even run on ancient "PCI PowerMacs" like the 7300, 7500, 7600, 8500, 8600, 9500, 9600 etc. and the Beige G3 systems as well as more recent machines that shipped with G3/G4 processors. Performance can be expected to be 4-5X faster than the fastest dual G4 systems ever shipped by Apple in the first wave, with even faster quad-core Freescale chips shipping in mid 2007 which could give late-model PowerMac G4 systems up to eight cores each with better performance per clock than any G4!

Then, following the initial Freescale-based upgrades, IBM is expected to ship new PowerPC 970MP, 970GX and PPC 975 chips in the first few months of 2007 which will offer clock speeds approaching 3GHz, dual-core technology, 65-nanometer energy efficiency and low heat production, and all the other benefits of next-generation G5 hardware in upgrades that may take third-party developers some time to finalize.....but by March 2007, at least one of the major players in the upgrade market is committed to having a dual-chip, dual-core G5 upgrade based on the PowerPC 970GX2 ready to ship. So there's a lot going on in the PPC upgrade market as we speak, a lot of new technology being developed!

On the Intel upgrade front.....while Intel's Core 2 roadmap has been out there for all to see, the possibilities for the Mac industry's third-party upgrade makers are a very different matter. Developing upgrades that add value over simply buying a chip off the shelf and installing it oneself is a challenge with the socketed "Macintels," but not very difficult technically.

Conversely, there will be little competition for the expertise that these companies have in upgrading soldered CPUs in laptop Macs....and given the infrastructure that many of these companies have invested in to be able to do that work in-house with rapid turnaround times at reasonable prices, we think that this will rapidly become a very big revenue-driver for companies like Newer and Sonnet.

We have some additional information about new PowerPC upgrades that will begin hitting the market in September with incremental improvements like Dual 2GHz PowerPC 7447A G4's, faster 745x G4 upgrades for systems that currently are limited to 500-600MHz PPC 7410 chips, etc....and the first wave of all-new Freescale multicore chips.....which has only days left on its embargo, so stay tuned throughout this month of July as we delve deeper into this tidal wave of exciting new dirt! "

I know there is a very vocal yet very small minority of folks who are bitter about the switch to Intel. Their reasons aside it looks like they won't have to make the jump themselves for 5 years at the most if these upgrades are true. I personally love my Core Duo Mini but for folks who don't want to spring for an entirely new Mac they can upgrade the CPU till their heart's content. Whether it makes financial sense isn't as much of a factor here since if you love the PPC more than you love logic and reason itself then I guess no amount of money is too much to spend.... although to be honest if they can somehow shoehorn a dual core G4 into a Powerbook G4 12" then I'd be tempted to jump on it just for nostalgia's sake.

I don't see G5 upgrades - either G4 to G5 (which is virtually impossible) or G5 to G5 (which is more technically possible) - happening and higher G4 upgrades are going to probably have diminishing returns in performance. Plus, as always, with CPU upgrades, you don't get the advatages of other motherboard upgrades, like increased video graphics performance, increased HD performance, etc. Generally the CPU upgrade route is for users with legacy peripherals that won't work on the newer hardware.

MOSR is absolutely unreliable. Putting a G5 into a pre-G5 Mac is practically impossible. Moto, ahem, I mean Freescale has settled for an entirely different market. The only thing I could imagine are dual-core G4 upgrades.

Let's see. The same Freescale and IBM for whom Apple wasn't a big enough customer to tailor CPUs for, are now running after a few little upgrade manufacturers? Riiiiight. And btw, what is a Freescale G4/G5 processor? Sounds like a HotDogHamburgerBurritoCheescake to me.

And I can't wait to see the IBM PPC970MP upgrade for the PowerMac 7300. Bring it on.

On a related note, I'd like to see how the Freescale dualcore 8641D performs. This chip has an integrated memory controller on it and I think dual altivec units. That said, I believe the move to Intel was the correct one for Apple. I doubt we'll ever see the day when IBM or Freescale comes out with new chips every 6 months...

MOSR is showeling BS.
With PCI Powermacs even a 1 GHz G3 has limits due to the 50 MHz Bus, with something "4-5X faster than the fastest dual G4 systems". Whould it work? and even if it would what OS 9 applications not aviable in OS X would make you pay for that upgrade?.
Even in G4 boxes something that would be like two 5-7 GHz G4 CPUs would have a CPU at least eqal to a 3 GHz Woodcrest but on a 100/133/167 MHz bus instead of 1333 MHz.
Outside CPU locked numberchruncing like F@H, what use would it be?
If I need a faster folding box it need to be cheaper or faster than a Pentium D for 100 bucks...

Wasn't Freescale supposed to be shipping the MPC8641D (dual core G4 evolution) in volume months ago?
It has a new front-side bus (667Mhz), but if you put it in an older Mac you're going to be sharing a single 100-167Mhz bus among all the cores in the box; ouch.

IBM is expected to ship new PowerPC 970MP, 970GX and PPC 975 chips in the first few months of 2007 which will offer clock speeds approaching 3GHz

Isn't this an essentially empty statement? My 15 month old PowerMac has 2.7GHz G5s in it. That certainly qualifies as "approaching 3GHz", right? So is "approaching 3GHz" really an improvement? Assuming the absolute best possible interpretation of this statement, it's can't be more than a 0.3 GHz improvement over last year's state of the art (about a ~10% improvement).

Wasn't Freescale supposed to be shipping the MPC8641D (dual core G4 evolution) in volume months ago?
It has a new front-side bus (667Mhz), but if you put it in an older Mac you're going to be sharing a single 100-167Mhz bus among all the cores in the box; ouch.

It was the 7448 that was supposed to have been shipping months ago. The 8641D wasn't/isn't planned to be commercially available until 4Q 06/1Q 07.

Isn't this an essentially empty statement? My 15 month old PowerMac has 2.7GHz G5s in it. That certainly qualifies as "approaching 3GHz", right? So is "approaching 3GHz" really an improvement? Assuming the absolute best possible interpretation of this statement, it's can't be more than a 0.3 GHz improvement over last year's state of the art (about a ~10% improvement).

<japanese lesson>The characters are bu ro gu, which is the closest way to get a pronunciation like "blog", and they're written in katakana, "used for writing foreign words or official documents", probably is what the Japanese use.</japanese lesson>

powerPC upgrades sound nice, specially for g5's if they ever come out, but software will migrate sooner than expected to an all intel based market. and we will be starving for patches, upgrades and major releases.

<japanese lesson>The characters are bu ro gu, which is the closest way to get a pronunciation like "blog", and they're written in katakana, "used for writing foreign words or official documents", probably is what the Japanese use.</japanese lesson>

I guess I'm bored. Sorry for OT post.

Thanks, but I know it is bu ro gu. I just was wondering if it was a real Japanese word.

Man, I would kill for a new Freescale chip for my laptop. The last G4 powerbook is a great machine that is only limited by its processor (and perhaps FSB). But maybe with some dual cores to live up to the graphics card...

Moreover... anytime MOSR does get something right, it’s always conveniently posted a few hours after AppleInsider, ThinkSecret, or MacRumors first post the news, but MOSR phrases it slightly differently in a lame attempt to appear to have "scooped" the item to begin with. MOSR was, 3-5 years ago, a prime source of reliable information, but it is a real joke today. Back then I would rarely miss a day without checking it, and now rare is the month when I do pop in even once for a laugh. He should just throw in the towel and stop pretending his opinion and totally contrived “inside information” matter any more. If I have to read one more “Stay tuned, we’ve got all the dirt in an extensive report coming this weekend…” I’m going to puke all over my Copland OS CDs.

And I'm not even getting started. There are holes big enough in this PowerPC story to drive two Buick Roadmasters through, side by side. Anyone with vaguest knowledge of the microprocessor industry knows how ludicrous some of the statements are, but there are enough posts in this thread pointing them out so I’ll spare everyone repeating them

Give it up MOSR, time to fold up your sandwich board and go offline. You're just an embarrassment now and most people have clued in that you’re just making this stuff up as you go along. MOSR experiencing a rebirth similar to AppleInsider’s impressive comeback is probably out of the question… and that only because of the inherent dishonesty of the site and its author.

If it looks like bullsh** and smell like bullsh** , it gotta be bullsh**!
MOSR never got anything right... you gotta read between the line everytime they post a supposed new rumor... so it's like guessing by yourself what they don't even know.

Not to mention, PowerPC fighting back in the Mactel environment is like trying to stop a speeding freight train with a bee bee gun.

Not really. PPCs position in the high and low end of the market is fairly strong (PPC4xx series, POWER5, etc...). It's only in the midrange that it takes a beating, and that's primarily an economic issue. i.e. IBM makes no products in that segment that use PPC, so they were relying on the sales of one fairly tiny third party to fund R&D for it. IBM's semi dept. is also much much smaller than Intel.

So I'd say rather that PPC fighting back would be like a small and undersupplied army on advantagous terrain beating a well equipped and backed one. It's possible, and it has happened, but the slight advantage of the terrain usually doesn't outweigh the overwhelming resources behind the other guy.

Oddly, upon my first return to MOSR in months they don't even seem to be around any longer. All I've managed to get for the past two days is a "failed to open page" error. Maybe he finally got the memo THAT ONE CARED ANY MORE.

The Mac died with the Intel switch...period. As much as people think this is a "good" thing, it isn't. You can tout that the Mac OS is the real heart of Apple, but what good will it be when we begin to see software developers writing more Windows software because the APIs can be emulated or virtualized on top of the Mac OS? It is already beginning...the software is out there. I'm not talking about Parallels or Boot Camp either...

The PowerPC platform is a VERY capable one with more expansion options than you can shake a stick at. P.A. Semi's project is a good start if you want information on what the PowerPC Mac could have been. Many people see IBM as a fool, but they're slow to realize that IBM, Motorola, Freescale, and P.A. Semi are all PowerPC designers/fabricators who share their technologies through licensing. A lot gets done amongst multiple independent research labs. Intel has....well....Intel.

The bottom line begins with the fact that Apple cares more now about its precious iPod than making Macs. Apple's increasing profits are not because of the Mac, but rather the iPod. How will the iPod affect the Mac? Perhaps we'll see soon.

All I know is that I will be buying the biggest Power Mac G5 I can get my hands on when the Intel switch is complete. If I have to wait 10 years for another platform switch, so be it. I'll have cash ready for those PowerPC upgrades.

All I know is that I will be buying the biggest Power Mac G5 I can get my hands on when the Intel switch is complete. If I have to wait 10 years for another platform switch, so be it. I'll have cash ready for those PowerPC upgrades.

Sorry, but barring disruptive technology (which PPC is not: it's 15+ years old), dollars and economies of scale win for products that do exactly the same thing, and processors are most definitely in that category.

Apple's strength has rarely if ever been "do the same thing faster", which is all faster chips can provide. Because of that, it makes no sense for them to take on the expensive and risky* task of funding a custom chip essentially alone** to try to get a jump on the rest of the market.

As for virtualization and WINE-style API implementations... we'll see. You may well be right that it hurts the Mac software market, but my feeling is that people will treat it much like they treat Classic apps: sometimes useful, but undesirable.

*Single-source products are always risky, as the constant delays due to chip shortages have proved. If Apple attempted to fund a backup chip... well, the point below applies doubly then. The x86 market has more than one source of high performance chips , and the PPC market effectively doesn't.

**IBM has no PPC desktop market, Motorola has no desktop market, and PA Semi has never had a desktop market, so Apple is the only one with any current interest in funding the development of desktop PPC chips. The G5 definitely reflects this reality, as it's simply a cut down version of an existing non-desktop chip. A truly new design like CELL is well beyond Apple's budget unless they increase the price of their products.

The PowerPC platform is a VERY capable one with more expansion options than you can shake a stick at. P.A. Semi's project is a good start if you want information on what the PowerPC Mac could have been. Many people see IBM as a fool, but they're slow to realize that IBM, Motorola, Freescale, and P.A. Semi are all PowerPC designers/fabricators who share their technologies through licensing. A lot gets done amongst multiple independent research labs. Intel has....well....Intel.

P.A. Semi is shipping nothing.
Freescale is shipping a three year old core with marginal clockrate increases. No duals for the desktop, and no quads on the roadmap.
Rumors at the time of the switch (possibly an official statement, I'm not sure) said IBM no-bid a future desktop/laptop chip for Apple.
Intel is shipping low-power dual-core chips, with quads scheduled before the end of the year.
AMD is shipping medium-power dual-core chips, with quads scheduled for next year.

Intel has AMD. And each has a larger chip budget than any of the PowerPC companies are blowing on desktop chips (possibly larger than all others combined).

The Mac died with the Intel switch...period. As much as people think this is a "good" thing, it isn't. You can tout that the Mac OS is the real heart of Apple, but what good will it be when we begin to see software developers writing more Windows software because the APIs can be emulated or virtualized on top of the Mac OS? It is already beginning...the software is out there. I'm not talking about Parallels or Boot Camp either...

The PowerPC platform is a VERY capable one with more expansion options than you can shake a stick at. P.A. Semi's project is a good start if you want information on what the PowerPC Mac could have been. Many people see IBM as a fool, but they're slow to realize that IBM, Motorola, Freescale, and P.A. Semi are all PowerPC designers/fabricators who share their technologies through licensing. A lot gets done amongst multiple independent research labs. Intel has....well....Intel.

The bottom line begins with the fact that Apple cares more now about its precious iPod than making Macs. Apple's increasing profits are not because of the Mac, but rather the iPod. How will the iPod affect the Mac? Perhaps we'll see soon.

All I know is that I will be buying the biggest Power Mac G5 I can get my hands on when the Intel switch is complete. If I have to wait 10 years for another platform switch, so be it. I'll have cash ready for those PowerPC upgrades.

The Mac isn't dead. How on earth can you STILL think the PowerPC platform is "very capable"? In what regard? Intel ALONE has managed to keep on improving their product while the combined forces of IBM, Freescale and all the other PowerPC manufacturers have lagged behind SEVERELY! You'd rather have a slower Mac just because you think the architecture is better? Fine. Free country. You have a funny way of defining "very capable" though. IBM can't even produce decent yields of their PPC based Cell processor for Sony for crying out loud. Exactly how bad does IBM have to suck at making CPUs before you'll embrace the cold hard reality?

And who cares about whether an App is native or not as long as it runs at the same speed? You'd rather be locked out of using the app at all instead of running it via virtualization? How many software companies do you think are currently maintaining Mac ports of their software? Not many. So via virtualization we can increase by orders of magnitude the amount of software available for Macs. Yet you se this as a bad thing. Amazing.

Been there, done that... twice: A1200/060, A4K 060/PPC (all overclocked). I have very fond memories of those old Amigas It's nice to see another beach ball fan gone Mac!

Originally Posted by iMouse

The Mac died with the Intel switch...period. As much as people think this is a "good" thing, it isn't. You can tout that the Mac OS is the real heart of Apple, but what good will it be when we begin to see software developers writing more Windows software because the APIs can be emulated or virtualized on top of the Mac OS? It is already beginning...the software is out there. I'm not talking about Parallels or Boot Camp either...

I hate to disagree, but I think the Intel switch is a VERY good thing. As much as I'm a fan of Motorola and IBM microprocessors, they've had a long standing tendency to drag a?? when it comes to the advancement of their chips. Initially, I'd have preferred Apple partnered with AMD instead when they made the switch. But the Core Duo and Core 2 have really proven themselves and put Intel back in the forefront. I've seen it 1st hand too! A friend of mine recently bought a Mac Mini Core Duo (1.66GHz) and it's a truly impressive performer. My one complaint is the lame 950 gpu, but I'm not alone in that. And how much fun was it to read about the 2.16Ghz Mini upgrades!

Originally Posted by iMouse

All I know is that I will be buying the biggest Power Mac G5 I can get my hands on when the Intel switch is complete. If I have to wait 10 years for another platform switch, so be it. I'll have cash ready for those PowerPC upgrades.

I'm sort of there already - this is a dual 2.5GHz G5 Tower w/Nvidia 6800 Ultra and 3yr AppleCare. The newer/faster G5 Towers (dual 2.7GHz, Quad 2.5GHz) aren't going to be noticeably faster for the apps I run. Also, despite the aweomse Core 2 benchmarks, I see no need to go MacIntel any time soon (assuming Core 2 Macs are just around the corner). I have no problems going MacIntel tho when it comes time to upgrade......joe